The 70′s: A Cruel Decade

In preparation for my reunion last weekend, I pulled out some old yearbooks (did anyone else call them annuals?).  We all had a blast looking at them while we were together and I threw them in the back seat for the trip home where they have stayed ever since.

I had the years 1970 (1st grade), 1972 (3rd grade), 1974 (5th grade) and 1978 (9th grade).  These books have provided no end of entertainment for my children.  Especially Miss Elena.  She has nearly killed herself laughing at her mama.  These are just a few of her comments:

“Is that her real hair?”  While looking at the Fairest of the Fair’s killer teased within an inch of its life do.

“Why did they wear those pants?”  While looking at the “Eighth Grade Favorites”  where every boy had on some variation of awful plaid pants.

“Cutest?  Funniest?  Most Likely to Succeed?  That’s mean!  What about the kids that didn’t get voted anything?  Didn’t that hurt their feelings?  (I wouldn’t know since I was the eighth grade Most Talented along with Wendell Boyd.  For some reason they had me holding a clarinet even though I played the flute.  And I really wasn’t very talented and quit band by my sophomore year in high school forever squashing my mother’s hopes that I would someday march with the “Pride of the Southland” band at UT Knoxville.)

I think the hair was the hardest thing for her to grasp.  She said, “What would happen if I wore my hair to school like that!?  People would die laughing!”

Clearly she cannot appreciate the time and effort put into making a relatively small amount of hair stand up in such a high fluff and hold for hours on end.  That takes a lot of Dippidy Do and Aqua Net, my girl.